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I am all for privacy. But I also don't want to pay too much. Currently, iCloud costs about twice as much as competitors. At the very least, I sincerely hope Apple will (1) increase free storage to something more reasonable and (2) reduce price by at least half.

If you ask me, considering most active iPhone users upgrade their phone every 1-3 years, Apple can afford to offer free unlimited photo storage. Charge only for video.
 
I'm glad that Cook has carried on the commitment to privacy that Apple enjoyed under Jobs.

He needs to do more of this—address something that directly affects Apple's products—and less spouting off on 'social rights' shenanigans, which have nothing to do with Apple products and everything to do with using his position at Apple to make his own personal political statement, something which Steve Jobs rightly never did.

Tim: if you wish to be a politician, then retire from Apple and knock yourself out with political causes. Otherwise, please shut up about polarising issues and stick to your bread and butter. Apple will be stronger for it.

Tim's "social rights" comments really, really seem to bother you. You make the same comments on AI. Why does this annoy you so much? It doesn't in any way hurt the bottom line, if that is what you are worried about. Do your conservative friends make fun of you because you use Apple products and their CEO is gay and outspoken?
 
I don't see your problem with iAds. Ads don't send private data to anyone
Neither does Google. They just use the data to build a profile about you, which they then use to sell targeted advertising space. Apple's iAd does exactly the same. On their iAd marketing page, Apple boasts that they are offering "over 400 targeting options" to advertisers, which means that they maintain detailed profiles about their users. That includes e.g. location, demographic information like age and gender, information about your tastes from tracking your music/movie/book purchases etc. They have also recently added a mechanism to track what you do in apps.
 
They should have put one of those leaked nudie pics of Jennifer Lawrance on that screen, while he talked about guarding customer information.
 
"And we think some day, customers will see this for what it is."

This is the only part where he is incorrect. Billions are already online and the population is only expanding. No one gives a hoot about privacy. 0.000000001% doesn't count.
 
Consumers have a choice. Love G. Photos. Apple lags so far behind re: AI Tim has to give speeches like this. Losing proposition imho once M comes out, but nice that you all have a choice.
I have the choice to not be the product for a company. There is no free lunch and I certainly would rather buy my own lunch, thank you very much. Nice that we all have a choice indeed.
 
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Apple and the like should be more vocal on social or human rights issues....since they are all considered people now right? Regardless, Apple will be stronger voicing support for those issues it chooses since it's Apple's and Cook's prerogative. Those who suggest others should "shut up" should probably heed their own advice.

I'm glad that Cook has carried on the commitment to privacy that Apple enjoyed under Jobs.

He needs to do more of this—address something that directly affects Apple's products—and less spouting off on 'social rights' shenanigans, which have nothing to do with Apple products and everything to do with using his position at Apple to make his own personal political statement, something which Steve Jobs rightly never did.

Tim: if you wish to be a politician, then retire from Apple and knock yourself out with political causes. Otherwise, please shut up about polarising issues and stick to your bread and butter. Apple will be stronger for it.
 
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Love it! I always thought I was the only one that cared that google mines the hell out of everything and that I'm "paranoid" or "who cares, I have nothing to hide".

It's not about hiding. Would you feel comfortable to see a bunch of advertisers taking notes outside the windows of your house on everything you do, even though you have nothing to hide. Same exact issue.

Will continue to support apple because of this.
 
Consumers have a choice. Love G. Photos. Apple lags so far behind
I have tried both Google Photos and iCloud Photo Library. You are right, my UI preference aside, Google Photos is superior to iCloud Photo Library in (1) price, (2) speed, (3) search, and (4) auto collection.

Apple can afford to catch Google in terms of price. But iCloud Photo is just so darn slow with my large library.

Having said that, WWDC is just around the corner and I would give Apple benefit of the doubt. I would love to have both privacy and price + speed.
 
The one thing I respect Google for is that they’ve never hidden the fact that they’re evil. If I ever use a Google product, no matter which one, I know that they will datamine the **** out of it. Apple is at best ambiguous with some good intentions, but it’s not enough. Apple is not at all transparent about the data they already have on you and they don’t make it easy to leave them behind either. You can’t delete your Apple ID and you can’t review the data that is in the cloud.

In addition, iCloud on my iPhone is painful. I frequently noticed that iCloud Keychain is switched on, which I never did myself. This should never be possible and it still makes me really uncomfortable that I don’t know what my iPhone does sometimes. I don’t know whether Apple discards the data when I turn off iCloud Drive for a specific app and I can’t even see which apps store data in iCloud. Last month I downloaded an old app that I had in my library and it restored the user data as well, despite not being mentioned at all in iCloud Drive (not even a toggle). So what is actually in that cloud and why can’t I see or control it? Do I have to create a new account to get a clean slate and just accept that the old account will stay there forever?

Sorry, Apple is just repeating the same old argument again and it’s not getting any better. They may not have an incentive to collect as much as Google does, but they don’t have an incentive to be extra careful and pro-privacy either.

lol what? so you respect Google cause they're evil but you forget one of the principals they preach is not to be evil?
 
And rightfully so. There's also the targeted advertising in iTunes Radio. As long as programs like this exist, all this talk sounds hollow to me. They are profiling us just like the other Internet companies.

Amen to this.

Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but the NSA and other agencies can still access OS X and iOS, it's just the smaller agencies that will have to get a warrant?

This talk is hollow and provides a false sense of security and trust in Apple. It "may" make law enforcement agencies and state sponsored spying a tiny bit more difficult but not much.

Killing their own data collecting and ad targeting would make me respect Cook more. Our spy agencies laugh at this...

Oh, and a big fu to the new forum. It is working horribly on my iPhone.
 
I generally like Cook. I think he has done a bang of job of, not only maintaining Apple's financial status after Jobs, but increasing it to an unbelievable level. I dislike when he does the disingenuous Google "you're the product" thing. For a guy who seems to value honesty and integrity, he seems to forget about it when the subject of advertising arises. Cook knows that Google sells ad space and not customer's personal data. He also knows Apple does the exact same thing. It's Google's main source of revenue, but that doesn't change the fact that it's a source of revenue for Apple as well. Albeit much smaller, but still a source of revenue nonetheless. Does iAds' failure to generate significant income somehow make it better than what Google does? Google sells hardware too. Apple just sells more. Is selling hardware somehow more noble than selling ad space? Especially since advertisers have no idea who you are and that you received their ad.

Google collects a ton of information on customers. A crap ton. Information such as occupation, language, zip code, area code, unique device identifier, referrer URL, location, and the time zone where a product is used so that we can better understand customer behavior and improve our products, services, and advertising. <That is straight from Apple's privacy policy. It's what Apple does as well.

Google does targeted advertising using anonymous data. The advertisers know nothing about their customers. Same with Apple. Why do you think Tim says "we don't share your personal information"? Of course they don't. He knows Google doesn't either since they would be out of business pretty quickly if advertisers had direct access to the customer. There would be no need to pay Google. Apple does datamine. They tell you that in the privacy policy. Saying they don't share personal information is a feint that doesn't address the reality they do what Google does.

And that crack about Google's Photo's app... that sad. Photo's is silo'd. They remain private.

Tim's better than that. He should stop it.
 
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"You might like these so-called free services, but we don't think they're worth having your email, your search history and now even your family photos data mined and sold off for god knows what advertising purpose."

Quick question - when someone gives a speech, you don't know whether that's a small g or a capital G, do you? Tech Crunch (which MR apparently quoted) thinks it's a small g, while The Verge thinks it's a capital G.

I suppose Tim could tell us - and certainly God knows - but it's interesting to see which one an author attributes to the speaker.
 
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I have the choice to not be the product for a company. There is no free lunch and I certainly would rather buy my own lunch, thank you very much. Nice that we all have a choice indeed.
I'm curious. What do you think Google does that Apple doesn't do? I ask because reading the responses to this article leads me to believe a lot of members in this forum don't know what either company actually does when it comes to data mining and advertising.
 
Quick question - when someone gives a speech, you don't know whether that's a small g or a capital G, do you? Tech Crunch (which MR apparently quoted) thinks it's a small g, while The Verge thinks it's a capital G.

I suppose Tim could tell us - and certainly God knows - but it's interesting to see which one an author attributes to the speaker.

Most likely pagan gods. Google and Apple are most unholy. "God" is shaking is head at Cook's smoke screen today. Tsk tsk

And the author probably has little religious background, or study.
 
Tim Cook said:
We believe the customer should be in control of their own information. You might like these so-called free services, but we don't think they're worth having your email, your search history and now even your family photos data mined and sold off for god knows what advertising purpose. And we think some day, customers will see this for what it is

How about Facebook? People post their entire lives (along with photo albums) on that thing. Don't just blame Google and think they're the only one doing it.
 
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It's great that Cook is saying this given the position Apple are in. Other major tech players have much more divided loyalties and motivations, even though they probably all know that weakening encryption is kind of insane, for many reasons.

I'm curious. What do you think Google does that Apple doesn't do? I ask because reading the responses to this article leads me to believe a lot of members in this forum don't know what either company actually does when it comes to data mining and advertising.

Make 96% of their profits from selling advertising? I think Apple make most of their profits from selling actual physical products. Am I wrong?
 
Make 96% of their profits from selling advertising? I think Apple make most of their profits from selling actual physical products. Am I wrong?

That's irrelevant. Where each company makes the majority of their profit has nothing to do with the question of privacy and being evil. When it comes to advertising, Apple and Google do the exact same thing. They sell ad space based on anonymous data. Neither company shares customers data.

Apple makes their money selling hardware, apps, and services (including advertising). Google makes their money selling hardware, apps, and services (including advertising). Again, where they make the majority of their money is irrelevant.
 
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